AV Index v1
Methodology
This page describes how the live tables are calculated today. It is not a regulator score, a crash-rate ranking, or a Times Higher Education-style research assessment. Sector rank is the primary public number. Global AV is a cross-sector normalization, not “best robotaxi.”
Inclusion
Ranked rows are companies with public status active, acquired, or subsidiary, plus is_verified and audit verdict verified. The directory on /companies is the same verified set. Unverified or pending records are not on the public boards.
Pillars
Companies can carry more than one sector tag. One primary sector is used for every board, including Robotaxi Ops (overrides: Tesla, Hyundai, JLR as OEMs; Mobileye as Software; Nuro as Last-Mile). An OEM with a robotaxi program stays on Automotive OEMs. Tesla stays off Robotaxi Ops until unsupervised commercial service exists. Sector score is a weighted sum of five drivers, each 0–100:
- Safety — reporting and disclosure confidence from structured fields and extracted filings, not a Euro NCAP or miles-per-crash protocol.
- Deployment — maturity, cities, and miles with confidence weighting. Supervised miles are not treated as paid driverless service.
- Strategy — strategic / technology posture from the company record.
- Capital — AV-adjusted capital strength (funding or market cap, scaled by AV exposure).
- Momentum — recent public coverage volume and activity, not editorial quality.
| Sector | Safety | Deploy | Strategy | Capital | Momentum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robotaxi Ops | 35% | 30% | 15% | 10% | 10% |
| Automotive OEMs | 20% | 20% | 25% | 25% | 10% |
| Autonomous Trucking | 30% | 30% | 15% | 15% | 10% |
| Hardware & Compute | 10% | 10% | 40% | 25% | 15% |
| Software & AI | 10% | 10% | 40% | 25% | 15% |
| Last-Mile Delivery | 30% | 30% | 15% | 15% | 10% |
| Industrial AVs | 25% | 30% | 20% | 15% | 10% |
Roles
Archetypes are derived from primary sector: operator (robotaxi, trucking, last-mile), enabler (hardware, software), oem, or industrial specialist. The homepage highlights Robotaxi Ops. Global AV is a separate board.
Global AV rank
Global score starts as 70% sector percentile + 20% AV exposure + 10% AV-adjusted capital percentile, then is multiplied by a role factor so operators typically lead the cross-sector board (operator 1.00, OEM 0.92, industrial specialist 0.82, enabler 0.78). Being first in a small software set no longer equals being first overall. Cite the sector table unless you mean this cross-sector normalization. Live ranks update after the next ranking recompute.
Limitations
- Safety is omitted from the sector score when there is no cited filing or structured disclosure. Grades on the site, when shown, are a display of that 0–100 disclosure signal — not a crash rate, NHTSA SGO rollup, or Euro NCAP grade.
- On Robotaxi Ops, Autonomous Trucking, and Last-Mile Delivery, a sector rank is printed only when at least two recorded pillars exist: a cited disclosure URL, structured deployment (cities, miles, or active locations), or recorded capital. Other verified operators stay listed without a rank number. Commercial / Pilot / Testing is an optional view on those boards, not the rank gate.
- The regulation page is an Index reading of public materials, grouped by country and common framework (US federal, EU type-approval). US states such as Arizona are nested under the United States, not treated as sovereign countries. It is not a live CA DMV/NHTSA feed or legal advice.
- News volume is not quality. Adjacent or duplicate headlines can still affect momentum. If there are fewer than two verified headlines, momentum is shown as “—” and counts as 0 in the sector score.
- Market and funding figures on company pages and Market Intelligence are company-record estimates (and, on Market, AV-adjusted). They are not a cited industry total.
- Deployment miles and city counts are incomplete for many firms, especially outside the US.
- This is not an annual 15-name editorial list. The full verified set remains in the directory. Operator boards may list some rows without a rank when coverage is too thin.
See the live tables on /rankings?sector=Robotaxi+Ops. Each table footer shows when that snapshot was calculated.